The Impact of a Local Development Project on Social Capital: Evidence from the Bohol Irrigation Scheme in the Philippines

Park, H and Tsusaka, T W and Pede, V O and Kim, K M (2017) The Impact of a Local Development Project on Social Capital: Evidence from the Bohol Irrigation Scheme in the Philippines. Water, 9 (3). pp. 1-15. ISSN 2073-4441

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Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the connection between local development projects and the residents’ social capital in Bohol, The Philippines. From this perspective, we hypothesized that social behaviors of local farmers are influenced by the availability of canal irrigation due to the collective water management required in irrigated societies. By combining the results of the ultimatum game (UG) with a household survey on 245 villagers in Bohol, this paper (1) measures the degree of social capital at the individual level and (2) quantifies the effects of irrigation on social capital by controlling household as well as individual characteristics. Moreover, we employed a Spatial Autoregressive model to explore the spatial effects and social contexts of farmers’ behavioral patterns. The empirical results show that the level of measured social behavior is strongly associated with access to community irrigation water and asset holdings. Additionally, increased physical distance between residents leads to a decrease in social capital, or interdependency, among them. The results suggest that community engagement (e.g., irrigation management committee and turnout service association) with local development projects would not only improve agricultural productivity but also enhance social relationships among farmers, highlighting its importance.

Item Type: Article
Divisions: Research Program : East & Southern Africa
CRP: CGIAR Research Program on Rice
CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE)
Uncontrolled Keywords: Local development; behavioral experiment; spatial autoregressive model; social capital; community engagement; ultimatum game
Subjects: Others > Irrigation
Others > Water Resources
Depositing User: Mr Ramesh K
Date Deposited: 10 Mar 2017 09:50
Last Modified: 10 Mar 2017 09:50
URI: http://oar.icrisat.org/id/eprint/9902
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/w9030202
Projects: UNSPECIFIED
Funders: UNSPECIFIED
Acknowledgement: The authors are grateful to the Social Sciences Division of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) that financed this study through the GRiSP (Global Rice Science Partnership) funding. Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) supported the Bayongan irrigation project. Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS) funded the data collection. We also thank the Foundation of Agri-Tech Commercialization and Transfer (FACT) for a research fellowship, which supported the first author’s research internship in IRRI. Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Seoul National University provided the fees for editing and open access publication. Samarendu Mohanty encouraged the authors to implement the research. Kei Kajisa and Keitaro Aoyagi were instrumental in the data collection process. Edmund Mendez contributed to the local resource mobilization. Lastly, the authors are thankful to the farmer respondents in Bohol who kindly participated in this study.
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